Vincenzo Natalis Neuromancer to film in early 2012

Rights and distribution deals struck at Cannes

Splice director Vincenzo Natali has been trying to make sci-fi Neuromancer for years, and finally he’s got his chance.

The adaptation of William Gibson’s seminal novel was shopped around Cannes this week, and was finally picked up by a distributor.

With the film rights also bought, filming is expected to commence early 2012, with locations including Canada, Istanbul, Tokyo, and London. Pre-visual effects work has already begun.

Released in 1984, Gibson’s novel kicked off the cyberpunk craze, the plot following Case, a computer whizz who lives his life in cyberspace. He's hired by a mysterious employer to "pull off the ultimate hack".

Collider spoke to Natali about the film last year. Here’s what he had to say:

“ Splice is about evolving our bodies. Neuromancer is about evolving our minds, and how we’re going to merge and interact with machine consciousnesses in the future. Which I also think is inevitable, and I don’t think The Matrix begins or even attempts to go into that territory.

“In fact The Matrix , in some respects is like a Philip K. Dick book, it’s really about what is real. And Neuromancer flirts with that, but I think it’s more about our evolution. It’s also tonally much more realistic.

“ The Matrix which I really liked, is a movie that’s very much based in comic-book reality, and kind of relishes in it. Whereas my approach to Neuromancer would be to treat it quite realistically.”